


To knock on heavens gate and weep

by OhWowAltMal



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Almost Kiss, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Oneshot, Post Haven, Pre Skyhold, Pre-Relationship, Relationship Development, Sign Language, Whump, ish, mute Inquisitor, name specific inquisitor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-03
Updated: 2019-11-03
Packaged: 2021-01-20 23:23:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21289877
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OhWowAltMal/pseuds/OhWowAltMal
Summary: Recovering from his injuries the night of Haven, the inquisitor shares an intimate moment with his favorite mage, only to get interrupted by some of the other members of his party. Pure fluff and recovery.
Relationships: Inquisitor/Dorian Pavus, Male Inquisitor/Dorian Pavus, Male Lavellan/Dorian Pavus
Comments: 3
Kudos: 86





	To knock on heavens gate and weep

**Author's Note:**

> Forward notes for some context;  
Charlie has a human name despite being dalish due to his human father and half-human lineage;  
The explosion at the conclave rendered him mute through severe trauma and injury;  
I've based all of my knowledge off of what I've currently learned through NZSL, but if i've made any mistakes or am insensitive PLEASE let me know so i can fix it immediately!

The reappearance of the Herald was all well and good, all dramatics and rushed entrances with frostbitten limp limbs and shouts for healers, and the bit of singing once he awoke was a nice touch, too. A very neat and tidy way to tie up this chapter for Varrics novel. If only, Charlie thought as he tugged his jacket tighter around himself and limped to the firepit, it could have all faded to black from there and they could wake up rested and warm in the supposed safe haven of Skyhold. 

He pictured crystalline waterfalls and beautifully painted murals. The ragged mountains in the distance promised different. 

It had only been a few hours since the healers had deemed him fit enough to walk – just barely, and only with many gestured promises to keep slow and not go too far – but only now had he been left to his own devices, free of any heraldic duties or snow-damp paperwork. Cullen and Cassandra had demanded a full report from him as soon as his hands could hold a quill. Far be it from him to deny them an explanation on that red-lyrium infected fuck they were facing, though he was certainly thankful that Josephine and Leliana held back from their own missives - only offering sympathetic smiles and quiet suggestions for breaks. It was hard enough to give a report without the ability to speak; make his hands shiver, and his weary bones ache, and he was about as useful as an aravel in the Waking Sea. 

Which was to say: better than nothing in a pinch, but in the long term and without proper guidance, he would surely doom them all. 

He glared at the frozen ground beneath him and danced around the thinning throngs of survivors. _Cheerful thoughts. Cheerful thoughts. _

A hard thing to do, when greeted with nothing but ice and snow and the stench of death. Easier, the closer he drew to the fire and the clearer he could see those gathered around it. 

While most of the inner circle had seemingly dispersed to their own tents along with the rest of the masses, a few still made themselves somewhat comfortable on the snow-covered earth and huddled around each other, talking in low but encouraging voices. Varric was attempting to deal out cards onto a damp blanket spread between himself, Sera, and The Iron Bull, while Scout Harding sat a fair distance away closer to the fire and Dorian right opposite the lot. The mage seemed to be scratching heat runes into the snow to no avail. Charlie wasn’t quite sure why he needed heat runes, considering he was sat as close as one could be to the fire without the threat of singed hair, but he wandered over nonetheless and asked to sit with a gentle touch on his shoulder. He started – probably not expecting company – but didn’t bother to hide the soft smile that curled at the sight of him. 

Charlie didn’t hide his, either. He was far too tired and far, far too cold to play these dancing sorts of games right now. 

“And so He lives! Our fabled Herald of Andraste, avoiding the clutches of evil once again to safely guide the masses and stitch back together our lovely little reality. Now, tell me,” he patted the ground next to him in an offered seat which Charlie gladly took, knees pressed together numb through the cold, “they say we lost you for a few minutes there. Was her bosom as ample as the scripture claims?” 

Though he came off in a joking manner, exhaustion weakened Dorian's usual façade of smug confidence and smarm, and concern had laced its way thin through his quips and flitted glances over Charlie's still sore injuries. Were he a braver man – and, perhaps, one who didn’t need his hands to respond – Charlie would have reached out to slip his fingers in-between the mages and squeeze them something dreadful. Were he a braver man, he would do more to ease his concern than laugh and respond with a joke of his own. 

“I won’t bore you with the details,” he signed, slow and creaky from the frost, “but she wasn’t really my type.” 

When they had met for the first time in the chantry of Redcliffe village, Dorian had simply assumed his silence was simply speechlessness on his rather attractive behalf. Not that he was wrong exactly – the arrogantly assumed reason was certainly pushing it, though the fact that he’d clamped his jaw shut hard enough to snap and bleed his tongue just to stop it from falling open like a fool didn’t help – but after the few more opened-ended questions fell short he had garnered pretty quickly the muteness wasn’t exactly temporary. Mostly, also, because Varric had explained his whole ‘hi, I'm the herald of Andraste who hasn’t been able to talk since I got this stupid mark on my hand, how do you do’ sort of thing after a few seconds of awkward silence. 

It was a good thing he had, too. If Charlie had been able to speak, it probably would have been more of a ‘hi, I've got a weird mark on my hand and you’re gorgeous, and you're a mage, I'm a mage, that’s cool, we have so much in common, want to come join my inquisition thing so you can keep talking in that wonderful voice of yours and maybe examine the other non-magical parts of my body too ( just in case they also have weird marks on them )’. Which probably would have made it just a tad bit more awkward. Especially considering _why_ they were actually meeting. 

Time magic, evil cults, and the end of the world weren’t typically mood-setters for a meet-cute. 

Getting sent back in time had not been fun, either. Neither of them could talk a single word to each other; Charlie could barely communicate with his inner circle without ink and a sheet - both of which weren't exactly in high supply in the cursed future they were launched too – and Dorain hadn’t fought with him enough for them to be even the slightest bit in sync yet. Still they’d got along fine enough. Dorian talked enough for the both of them and when he responded in kind with facial expressions or a single-fingered gesture, he seemed to take it in stride. By the time they'd escaped, at least, he’d learned what ‘get over there’ looked like. 

It wasn’t a high bar to hit. Most of the time he was just pointing. Still, credit where it's due, and he would freely admit that Dorian was certainly one of the better people to get stuck in time with. 

It was about a week after their return to Haven that things had changed. The evening had seeped into the horizon with inky blacks and blues, and Charlie, still nursing a rather nasty wound to the shoulder, had retired early to finish some reports. He wasn’t expecting a visitor – much less Dorian, who had slammed into the room thick with bravado and weighed down heavy with a tome that he had tossed onto the bed as soon as he was close enough. 

“You and I,” he had said, hands on his hips and a twinkle in his eye that made Charlie's chest twist, “are going to have a talk.” 

He had given him a deadpan expression and turned back to his reports. Dorian pushed on, unaffected.

“Everyone is too busy up their own asses with all of this ‘Andraste save us’ this and ‘blah blah templar mage war’ that – yet what nobody seems to be concerned about is ‘how do we ask the man leading us what he wants for supper’.” He had pulled up a chair to the side of Charlie's bed and rested his feet on the plush ornate mattress, ignoring the amused but dirty look he had shot at him. “It's rather rude, don’t you think? Fortunately, I have a way of fixing the problem.” 

And, then, _fenedhis,_ he had _winked_. “I have a way of fixing most things, actually. I'm rather impressive like that.” 

Dorian had, from some dusty library or drawn from the deepening coffers of the inquisition, procured a thick leatherbound book with ornate Orlesian-french writing scrawled in golden loops across the cover. Not _particularly_ useful, until he flipped it open to reveal pages upon pages of delicately inked out sketches of palms and lips gestures all labeled with neat little boxes. 

Charlie grew quiet. In breathing and movement, not in words that he had no access to. The room was still and the only sound was the quiet rustle as he turned from page, to page, to page and to page, barely scraping over each and just absorbing. _Understanding_. 

Somewhere in the week since they had gotten back, Dorian had found him a book that would allow him to talk again. They had barely known each other a week and he had – Charlie had never even thought to _ask_, had never even _known_ this kind of book existed - 

He had thrown his arms around the Altus's shoulders without a second thought, awkward from their angle but tight and warm, burying his face into his neck with a shuddering breath and hoping it was enough to say the thousands of words he had racing in his head. After a second, Dorian hesitantly returned the hug. 

“I don’t think I need a translation for this one,” He had murmured, and Charlie had laughed. 

The inner-circle slowly took to the language with the book becoming well-worn and dog eared, though Charlie – naturally – coveted it the most. Josephine delighted in the learning and spent evenings pouring over it with Leliana, Cassandra, a night or two as well when she could spare it; Sera had immediately learned the curses, of course, and traded them back and forth with Bull and Charlie; most others learned the alphabet and nothing more. It had a way of filtering through them slowly through shared meals and trips on the road. He didn’t mind. It was miles better than just smiles and paper phrases already, even if a few simple letters conveyed an entire conversation. 

Dorian surprised him. Really, he shouldn’t have, considering he was the one who had brought him the tome in the first place; but he had rather naively thought of it like a ‘thanks for not throwing me out into the cold’ present and nothing more. He had never expected him to be the most eager of them all to learn, much less expected them to spend long afternoons together, pouring over phrases and gestures and practicing with each other until they could have entire conversations sat in complete silence. 

Much less expected their afternoons to become the highlights of his career as the Herald. _Very much less_ hadn't expected to suddenly trip headfirst into feelings for the man. 

The initial days Dorian had talked to fill the void, nonsense comments about their fellow companions, how terribly cold it was down here, and how the south seemed to have a fatally disastrous lack of civility. The more they studied together, the shakier their conversations got – not from lack of topics or an active dislike on his part, but from his own timid comments or contributions. The first thing he had ever said to him was a simple “i agree,” signed slowly and directly from the book in a response to Dorian's complaints about plaidweave being a favored clothing material of Seras. “A disgrace against the Makers holy eyes themselves,” he had called it. He had blinked, then laughed when he saw Charlie's response. 

“Finally,” he had grinned, and Charlie's throat suddenly felt very dry. “Someone with a holy writ and some damned aesthetic sense.” 

Shared afternoons had turned into shared evenings paired with wine, and though lesser in number due to an increased demand for the Heralds presence, never lacking in chemistry or persistence. They took to practicing on the road with what they could and spelled out what they couldn’t. Conversations, as more of their companions took up the language, became boisterous and quiet. Sometimes they could travel for hours In complete silence as the four of them signed to each other in clumsy learning gestures and snorted laughter. For the first time since he’d woken up in that cell, Charlie actually _liked_ being the Herald. 

It helped to have Dorian – to have someone around he could hold a full, proper conversation with. The others were grand, and he was endlessly grateful for their efforts on his behalf, but they hadn’t quite caught on the same way he and Dorian had. They were learning privy through each other; he and Dorian were learning together through long nights and worn down candles. Comfort zones expanded and personal areas decreased. They would spend hours working through the pages in his room together, splayed on his bed knocking knees and sides pressed together as they poured over the sketches and fumbled through new phrases. More often than once he would glance up and catch Dorian's eye before it flit away. 

“My hands are down here,” he had joked, and hoped the low candlelight hid his flush. Dorian grinned and turned back to the book. 

“I’m well aware.” He said, Charlie suddenly hyperaware of how close they were, and Dorian had the good grace to ignore the sudden hitch in his throat. Like a true gentleman, he had simply turned the next page and started going over a new diagram. 

So, yes, maybe he was slightly just too enamored with the mage, and it was hell going through every day with him so close by his side. If that was the _least_ of his problems, so be it; with the breach in the sky finally closed, it’s not like things could get any worse than a silly crush on an attractive man who flirts too much for his own good. 

Then things got worse. 

Significantly. 

He’d barely made it to the forward camp after the collapse of Haven, so frozen through and blue the others had thought him dead when they found him. They were close enough, with his survival a shallow breathing and a weak, sharp cough that had been fading quieter and quieter as they rushed him to the healers. Not to mention the rest of his broken ribs and bones and aching wounds. But he’d pulled through; and one song, many healing potions, and vague set of directions from Solas later he was awake and very, very tired. 

Or maybe that was just the cold. Either way, he was grateful to sit down. 

“Well then,” Dorian continued as he made himself comfortable on the hard-packed ground, “let's make an effort to keep you in the land of the living from now on, lest you find yourself dreadfully lonely in the afterlife.” 

“I’m sure Solas would find some way to lecture me on responsibility through the fade - but thank you for the concern.” He grinned, shuffling closer to try and steal some of his body heat. “I, too, would prefer not to die again. It was a rather dreadful experience.” 

“Then I'm glad we’re in agreement.” Seeing his shivers and the not-so-subtle-hints Dorian rolled his eyes and sighed, before rather dramatically unwrapping the thick blanket from around himself to drape it half over Charlie's shoulders. He snuggled into his side gratefully, instantly warmer with the fur-lined fabric wrapped around him. They had been signing to each other, but now Dorian turned and shouted to a nearby scout. “Could we possibly get some more blankets and prevent our Herald from freezing to death? Let's not get too cocky now, with his return.” 

He considered replying, then figured it would be far too cold to stick his arms out from beneath the blanket, and settled for knocking his forehead to Dorian's shoulder with a quiet laugh instead. The mage looked down at him with amusement, and hesitant fingertips crept around the small of his back. “All jokes and trivial matter aside – how are you doing? One does not simply come back from the dead with such a perk in their step.” 

Still not wanting to bare his arms to the freezing night air, he squirmed closer, giving permission for Dorian to wrap an arm around his waist while he took the man's hand in his own to press his thumb down against his palm. With the blankets wrapped tightly around them, obscuring their hands, their conversation was private – or, his side, at least. It wasn't intended that way, but it let him sigh and relax his shoulders knowing he could say what he wanted. Sometimes, people he didn’t want to, watched. 

“I'm tired,” he wrote, slow onto Dorian's calloused palms. “My body aches and my head feels like it's been wrung through a cheese-cloth.” 

The mage hummed in assent, and quietly flipped their palms over so he could speak back in the private. “Side effect of the whole being dead thing, I suppose. Unfortunate how I don’t specialize in healing magics.” 

“Helping me sit up straight and not collapse onto the ground is helping.” The fingertips that had slipped beneath his shirt were warm, too warm, and he glanced over with a suspicious and appreciative grin. “And, I suppose, the impromptu magically heated massage?” 

A booming laugh from Bull drew both of their attention for a brief second, as the Qunari seemingly won a large hand. Varric dealt out a fresh set of cards and the fire sparked between them. “Not enough oil and too many witnesses for that, I'm afraid,” Dorian said, stroking softly up and down his side, “but should we ever find ourselves in a rare bout of privacy, I'll be glad to lend my services.” 

“And I'll be glad to receive them.” There was a bout of silence between them in which their hands never let go of one another, and Dorian's thumb took to long sweeps across his wrist, calming, warm, and heart-wrenchingly tender. Charlie decided he could learn to deal with the cold if each evening was spent like this. 

As he shuffled a slight closer a fresh injury twinged in his chest and he hissed, drawing in on himself for a second before readjusting, and Dorian squeezed his hand in a quiet _are you okay? _

“Fine,” he said, swallowing hard and calming his stuttering chest. “Don’t worry about me.” 

There was a harder squeeze, making him glance up, and Dorian was smirking at him unimpressed and gentle. “Asking that of me is like asking you to stop getting in the way of everything monstrous we come across.” 

“Achievable with a large sum of money and a painless amputation?” The shit-eating grin he gave him made him roll his eyes, and Charlie's heart was in his mouth. He was so _warm_. 

“I would have said impossible, considering both of our afflictions to danger, but now I'm questioning where your motives lie.” 

“What do you mean?” He curled his knees in closer, sucking all the heat from him that he could, and the grip on his bare hip tightened. “I'm the hero. My only motives are those of heroic tales of old and tragedy.” 

Dorian, buying absolutely none of that bullshit, raised his eyebrows. “Save the world, get the girl, die a martyrs death?” 

Pretending to consider it with pursed lips and a slightly cocked head, he let a few seconds scrape by, badly hiding his smile. “Save the world, get the guy, retire rich and happy is more my kind of forte, especially considering I've already died once.” 

“Oh?” the fake surprise was an admirable attempt, to all those except the one person it was intended for. Charlie simply snorted. “Well, I'm certain you’ll have many suitors falling over themselves to be at your feet in the future, all things considering. The ‘touched by the Maker’ thing seems to be a rather magnetic aphrodisiac.” 

In the same way waking up with a set of broken ribs and hypothermia gave him shortness of breath and a shuddering chest, the striking realization that they were both inches apart and as alone as you could get at this campsite made him feel slightly faint and flushed. Maybe it was the injuries. Maybe it was the fact he could make out every hair out of place on his mustache, and he found it ever so endearing. 

“Maybe I've already got my eye on someone,” He said, and surely, it would have been breathless if vocal. As it was his fingers danced with nervous tips. “I’m not one for a harem.” 

“Well then, I hope the poor sod’ll get used to his beloved defying death on the regular, else you do his poor heart in from the stress.” Their noses were brushing. He couldn’t tear their eyes apart. Dorian's breath was warm on his upper lip, curved upwards slightly and inviting.

“I’m fairly sure he’s getting used to it by now.” A flicker downwards, at Dorian's lips, the mage swallowing hard and never glancing away. “Though I'm certainly amenable to finding lovely ways to apologize.” 

“Something I'm sure he, if not any sane man, wouldn’t dare to refuse.” And they were kissing, well, not yet, they were about to, it was obvious if by the way they barely had to lean in a few centimeters and close half-shut eyes and thread fingers through each other rather than talking - 

Bulls laughter, booming and loud, jerked them apart in guilted surprise even as their hands clenched tighter together. Sera had stood and thrown her deck down as she stormed off, cursing in colors that even Charlie hadn’t heard before and Varric was left to pick up the damp pieces – no one was paying attention to them. Even so, Dorian seemed to shy away. The space between their shoulders now was cold and felt bitter, though he knew he didn’t intend it to be so, and even with their closeness shared beneath the veil of the blanket it seemed whatever moment had built between them had passed. 

Mythals accursed tits. 

“I would retire to bed,” he started off, tentatively, tracing the words with a delicate touch as not to shatter the fragile air around them, “but I'm afraid I should freeze the second I leave your side. 

And the blanket,” He added after a second of hesitation, and reveled in the snort Dorian gave. A small victory. Something to treasure amongst the ruins of his failure, here. 

“And I suppose we can’t have that now, can we?” Dorian said, still separate, still lacking in the kind of intimacy they had shared before, but certainly slipping back into the ease of cocky familiarity. _Comfortable_. “I’m certainly not going to be the one to leave our beloved Herald to the cold.” 

He hummed in assent. By now it was just them around the fire; Varric had bidden a goodnight with a smirk Charlie couldn’t decipher, and The Iron Bull and slipped away when they weren't looking, leaving the two of them and the crackling heat relatively alone. He was sure there were scouts around, somewhere, and every now and then there would be a distant footfall or a distinct crunch of snow under a boot – but, for now, he could pretend. 

He could pretend. 

Dorian didn’t move away when he rested his head on his shoulder – froze, certainly, muscles tense under the unfamiliar movement, but didn’t move away. Didn’t move away when he nestled against his neck with a contented sigh. Exhaustion was beginning to seep into his bones thick and fast, and though it had been a joke earlier, now he really was beginning to think he wouldn’t be able to stand and leave; not without a fair amount of help, anyway. Gravity was weighing his eyelids down, and the scent of sandalwood, spices and something distinctly _Dorian _wove through his senses like a calming balm. 

“I'm tired,” he said, small and letters slurring into one another. 

Before the tendrils of sleep drew him under, he didn’t feel a response; but did feel the soft press of lips to his temple, and something murmured too quiet and too soft to slip through his haze. 

**Author's Note:**

> why did i make the title go so hard for a 'near kiss' fic thats less than 5k
> 
> I had this idea rolling around in my head, and while i've wanted to do a long fic with Charlie for a long time, this AU(?) and specifically this scene took my heart and held me hostage until i wrote it. It was good practice for hopeful future DAI fics! Also my first DAI fic!


End file.
